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…It’s Tuner Tuesday: Carroll Shelby?

Carroll Shelby might be the man behind the Cobra (both the modified Mustang versions past and present and the two seat race cars like the one above), the Daytona, the Series 1, and the Viper, but none of those cars are the reason for his being chosen as today’s tuner. No, the real reason Shelby was and is a tuner that few can match is his personal love for speed. Back in 1966, Carroll built two Supersnake cars, one for him and one for Bill Cosby. Bill later wrecked his, but who could blame him, the car had 800 horsepower in a setup that was already proving difficult to handle with far less horsepower. Carroll didn’t mind that though, he just wanted to go fast. Real fast. To make his Supersnake, Shelby took one of the 19 production Competition Cobras and added two Paxton superchargers to the 427 engine and mated it to a three-speed automatic transmission. It’s a simple formula: Big Engine + Pair of Superchargers = Fast Car, but Shelby did it with style and class like no other. Why build such a beast? In the words of Shelby himself:

When I built this dual supercharged 427 Cobra in 1966, I wanted it to be the fastest, meanest car on the road. Forty years later, it will still kick the tail of just about anything in the world.

I think he succeeded. The car was put on the Barrett-Jackson auction block this year, and fetched a cool $5,000,000 for Shelby’s charity. Even today, the car is a stunner.